Boris Alekseyevich Prozorovsky (; 30 June 1891 in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Imperial Russia Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * ...

– 1937 in

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

) was a

Russian composer This is an alphabetical list of significant composers who were born or raised in Russia or the Russian Empire. A * Els Aarne (1917–1995), born in present-day Estonia * Evald Aav (1900–1939), born in present-day ...

and

songwriter A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. ...

who specialized in the genre of

Russian romance Russian romance ( ''románs'') is a type of sentimental art song with hints of Romani people, Romani influence that was developed in Imperial Russia by such composers as Nikolai Titov (1800-1875), Alexander Alyabyev (1787–1851), Alexander Egoro ...

. Many of his best-known songs ("Rings" "Caravan", "Ships", among others) were originally performed by his protégé and one-time partner

Tamara Tsereteli Tamara Semyonovna Tsereteli ( ka, თამარ წერეთელი, , 14 August 1900, in Sveri, Kutais Governorate, Georgia, Russian Empire – 3 April 1968, in Moscow, USSR) was a Georgian Russian singer, contralto, who specialized i ...

, who recorded some in 1927 (for the Muzpred/Muztrest record label), the year Prozorovsky's career reached its peak. In 1929 the All-Russian Musicians Union's Conference declared the whole genre of Russian romance 'counter-revolutionary'. In 1930 Prozorovsky was arrested and spent three years in

Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

. After the release he continued to perform (now with pianist Daniil Olenin), but in 1937, at the height of the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

, was arrested again and executed.Ukolovs, Elena and Valery. The Romances and Life of Boris Prozorovsky. Sovremennaya Muzyka Publishers // Елена и Валерий Уколовы. Романсы и судьба Бориса Прозоровского. — М.: Современная музыка, 2007. — 212 с.

References

External links

"Караван"
(lyrics by B. Timofeyev) performed by Dmitry Ryakhin. TV Kultura/Romantika Romansa with Lyubov Kazarnovskaya. Russian male composers Russian male songwriters 1891 births 1937 deaths Composers from Saint Petersburg 20th-century Russian male musicians Great Purge victims from Russia {{Russia-composer-stub